IT HAS BEEN ARGUED BY THOSE MORE PASSIONATE ABOUT EQUALITY than reality that male and female sommeliers are no different. They point to the recent increase in the number of women acquiring such positions as confirmation.

They are wrong, and here is proof: When I telephoned Shelley Lindgren to arrange a location for a meeting, she gave me two alternatives—one the restaurant where she is wine director and co-owner (A16 in San Francisco) and the other the hospital where she was soon to give birth.

That's a difficult feat for any male sommelier to accomplish. Lindgren and I finally did get together, in fact, at the restaurant. Afterward, we e-mailed regularly, conducting back-and-forth conversations such as this one.

ME: Where is your baby—which I'm starting to think of as our baby?

LINDGREN: This baby is enjoying some spa time in Mama's belly. However, I am in the early phases of labor and was really sure tonight was the night, but at this point it hasn't happened yet.

I only go into such detail because a male sommelier's idea of intimacy is telling a customer how much Musigny he drank the previous weekend in the company of other male sommeliers.

I admit there was a time when I didn't like to drink wine with women, let alone buy from them. They were just too sober, in every definition of the word. They didn't spend enough on wine, they were unlikely to discuss terroir, and they never got stupid-drunk at dinner—confirmation that they didn't understand the manly art of having a good time.

Now, as more and more women take to the profession of wine steward (there are 16 female Master Sommeliers out of 96 total—male and female—in the United States), I'm never happier than when one of them approaches my table. I'm almost certain that I will be entertained, and possibly even challenged, in a manner different from that which I would expect from a male. (He'd almost certainly tell me what Burgundy he liked while intimating that I couldn't afford it.)

I recently stopped in to see three female sommeliers across the country: Lindgren; Alpana Singh, who is director of wine and spirits for Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago; and Nadine Brown, sommelier and wine buyer at Charlie Palmer Steak in Washington, D.C. I found their approaches to wine comparable and absolutely unlike those of men. These women emphasize storytelling and making customers feel relaxed.

Brown immediately took me up to the 11th-floor roof of the building occupied by Palmer's ground-floor steakhouse. We walked straight into an astounding panorama of the District of Columbia, with the Capitol front and center. "This is a big reason why I just do American wines," she said. Out-of-town visitors get the tour, of course, but she especially loves to bring up residents of the district who, she says, "have grown up here and drive by the Washington Monument every day and don't realize how stunning it is."

Brown, 37, was born in Jamaica and raised traditionally—her grandmother had a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II on her kitchen wall. Nevertheless, she is a devotee of all that is American. She loves to tease restaurant guests by having them challenge her with questions, like identifying the statue atop the Capitol. She says, "I'm from Jamaica, and I'll tell you about your American buildings."

On the floor of the restaurant, Brown's a smooth talker, which she credits mostly to the nuns at the Catholic high school she attended, who rapped her knuckles whenever she spoke any other way. It isn't bottles she sells as much as their history. When she suggests a Lail Vineyards wine, she tells guests that owner Robin Lail's great-granduncle was Napa pioneer Gustav Niebaum, founder of Inglenook Vineyards. (She has an Inglenook wine on the list, too: a 1968 Cabernet selling for $450.) Brown explains how Beaulieu Vineyard survived Prohibition, extols Diamond Creek as the Château Latour of America, and claims that Spottswoode is the equivalent of one of the so-called super seconds of Bordeaux.

"I can't be talking about the scents of quince and figs and gooseberries in wine, like other sommeliers," she says. "I don't know what they're talking about. For me, the scents I recognize are those I grew up with in Jamaica: jackfruit and papaya, all the Korean-market fruits."

Brown is unremittingly curious. She seems able to engage anybody in any conceivable dialogue. I had invited my old college roommate, who holds a doctorate in chemistry and has recently retired from the CIA, to dine with me. In seconds, he and Brown were discussing nuclear energy at a higher level than I could have achieved, and I used to take science classes with him. His wife, marveling at Brown's ability to charm her husband, said, disbelievingly, "You're sucked into whatever she says. She could probably talk even me into buying a $130 bottle of wine."

I MET UP WITH ALPANA SINGH AT THE CHICAGO RESTAURANT Osteria Via Stato, where she was conducting a class on sweet wine for the servers working there. She told me she had previously taught them about beer, explaining how it originated as a way to preserve nutrients in grain, and how the Phoenicians used beer as currency. At this session, she was explaining the evolution of sweet wine and weaving tales of czars drinking (then-sweet) Cristal Champagne, of popes sipping sweet wine at high mass, and of the curative powers of Italy's Vin Santo, which once was thought to heal the sick.

Singh was decidedly nontechnical, advising the servers to color-coordinate wines with sweets: the golden with custard, the amber with caramel, the Port-style with chocolate. She said, "Sweet wine is fun, it's cool, it's neat, it's low in alcohol—and it's expensive." She laughed and giggled, creating a nonauthoritarian image, even though she is a Master Sommelier and, because of her position at Lettuce Entertain You, one of the most important women in wine in the U.S. The servers were sitting at a long table, and even though Singh, at 32, was younger than many of them, I felt as though I were in school, watching a teacher spin tales.

"As sommeliers, we are the caretakers of stories," she said. "We tell about winemakers, explain how grapes were namedâ�¦all the People magazine aspects of wine. We demystify, and people relate to this. That's what I teach my servers: Tell the story behind the grapes and the wine."

Singh is in charge of purchasing wine for Lettuce Entertain You, which oversees 80 restaurants. I asked her what customer she has in mind when she is buying, not expecting a clearly defined answer, but getting one: "She's 26, and her name is Katie; she has $10 to spend on a bottle of wine, and I will get her to change that. Katie isn't stupid. She's smart and sophisticated." She added that were she Al Singh, male sommelier, the model might be a guy named Zach or Aaron, who is already a vice president of finance, learned something about wine from his parents, and "knows enough about wine to be dangerous."

She said, "Being a woman, I put myself more in another woman's shoes. I think of Katie because I think of myself as a typical buyer. I grocery shop. I make most of the financial decisions, especially the household ones, for my husband and myself. I'm always seeing women buying wine. Whole Foods was named wine retailer of the year [by Wine Enthusiast magazine] in 2007 because women buying vegetables look for an $8 wine with a pretty label.

"I go to wine tastings where the turnout is 60 to 70 percent female—a female bonding experience. I don't know why more men don't go; they seem like a great place to meet women. Also, who is more likely to entertain with wine? Women have friends over for book clubs, knitting clubs, social gatherings, playdates."

Now there's an aspect of the female daily routine unknown to an apparently naive male population. Wine at playdates? "Of course," Singh said.

To my suggestion that she seems to have ruled out men as even marginally essential in the wine world, she explained, "No, we still need the men. I can't say one gender is better than another. But I have found that women listen more, and that they distill information based on listening before they come up with a response. Men are still surprised to see a female sommelier, taken aback, not as likely to listen to recommendations. They are more likely to trust a guy, especially if he has a French accent."

She did concede one disadvantage to being a female sommelier, particularly one as well known as she is. "My husband just pointed out that I was photographed wearing the same dress four times last week. I had to go out and buy an evening gown."

AND SO THE BABY CAME, THE SECOND CHILD OF GREG and Shelley Lindgren, unfortunately not named for me, although I had promised dinner for her and her husband if he would have been. We had become so close through e-mails, at least in the matter of childbirth, that she even sent me a snapshot as soon as he was born. (I thought little Asher looked a lot like me.) She told me that she celebrated his birth with a small glass of Fiano di Avellino, one of the Southern Italian wines that dominate the list at A16.

A few days before giving birth, a short time after our meeting at the restaurant, she sent me an e-mail telling me about a lunch she had enjoyed with an old friend, a woman who had become a sommelier and maître d'. The two of them talked about the early days in the restaurant wine business. Lindgren is 37, which makes her a comparative old-timer in the world of female sommeliers.

She wrote in her e-mail, "She was reminding me of one of my first interviews to become an assistant sommelier at one of the most fantastic restaurants in San Francisco. The reason I wasn't hired was that the wine director was worried I wouldn't physically be able to carry the cases of wine up and down the stairs. I had forgotten that story. Soon afterward I was hired at Bacar, where there were sometimes a hundred cases of wine to put away before a shift of service started. Another interesting thing was brought up during this discussion, something we laughed about, not because we were intending to bash our gender. There are women we have known over the years who, for some reason, felt the need to either use their feminine sexuality or the other extreme: be very cold—well, â��bitchy'—just because they thought they had to be, in their position. We were laughing because it was so unnecessary, and we look back and wonder why they ever felt the need to behave that way."

Lindgren, like Singh and Brown, does utilize an assortment of feminine ploys, but they are of the sort that comfort rather than seduce. At A16, she brought over a bottle of 2007 Casa d'Ambra "Frassitelli," a white wine made on the island of Ischia, and when I questioned its significance, she told me about the charm of the ferry ride from Naples to Ischia, and about the grape, called Biancolella, which dates back to the time of the Phoenicians. (It's apparent that female sommeliers like to play the Phoenician card.) As a deal closer, she pointed out that the island was known as the home to the sirens who attempted to lure Ulysses. By the time Lindgren ceased beguiling me, I was ready to gulp the stuff.

All three of these women were remarkably effective. I listened when they talked, drank what they suggested, and regretted not one bit of this atypical behavior on my part. They had cunningly made the business of selecting a wine in a restaurant not a chore but an experience.

Brown, who has a degree in social work, says of her effect on male customers, "The tone of voice of a woman is kind of reassuring. Every kid picks up on it. No matter how great a father is, when a boy needs it, he runs to the mother." Singh, who seemed somewhat sympathetic toward any female sommelier who feels she has to assume the role of seductress, said, "When I see a female sommelier in high heels, I'm in awe. How can her feet not be hurting? I have orthotic inserts in my shoes."

Meeting with these compassionate women allowed me to temporarily forget the aspect of femininity I most often encounter, perhaps because I'm always in New York City. Remember that mystery figure atop the Capitol? Turns out it's called the Statue of Freedom. It's a woman, an intimidating one, her right hand on the hilt of a sword.